Wednesday, March 30, 2011

LICENSE TO FART

When I'm sucking down a home-cooked meal a little too fast and have to let fly a gut-rumbling, table-shaking belch, I'm gross.

When I'm in bed for the night, my body relaxing, and I unleash a bed-shaking, cheek-slapping, nose-burning fart, I'm gross.

Even when I'm using a kleenex to sound the air horn and expel snot from my head, I'm gross.

My wife pretty much either tells me she loves me, or that I'm gross. It's a 50/50 chance at any given time.

I don't think I'm gross. Do I not courtesy flush when emitting stomach-churning, paint-peeling fumes from the porcelain throne? Do I not roll down the window of the van when I've ripped a silent-but-deadly?

The kids don't think I'm gross. They love potty humor. They think I'm funny. Especially when they can join in. They clearly took the potty training book title Everyone Poops to heart. Not so the wife.

And as I get older, it's become harder to resist the constant barrage of condemnation from the wife. At long last, I had to point out she is living in a glass house. Wives- in particular moms- are pretty gross, too.

First off, everyone breaks wind. It's a biological function. It is true many folks manage to hold it in until they can get to a safe blasting distance, but the occassional emission is had. Same thing with belches- especially when drinking carbonated drinks. Everyone does it.

And let's not forget morning sickness.

Oh, yes, my wife forgot all about that. She forgot her all-hours-of-the-day-and-night Linda Blair impersonations. Her fountains of projectile vomit that went on for weeks and weeks. She forgot how I had to clean up her half-digested sweet tea and pineapple chunks. From the carpet, bed cover, walls, and even refrigerator. Even with the wet/dry shop vac I bought with our second child, it was a disgusting task. I don't like vomit, and I sure didn't enjoy having to clean it up from wherever Mommy Appleseed happened to drop it around the house. Multiple times a day. But did I complain? No.

Then there were the diapers. I helped change them too. The nasty, liquified peanut-buttery like messes that made me wish for a hazmat suit. In fact, my worst memory of child rearing was the time my child walked up, pulling a hand from where she'd been scratching her butt, as if to initiate a secret father-daughter handshake. In the midst of reading the internet, I absent-mindedly took the sweet, innocent hand of my barely-walking baby. That was covered in crap. I wish she had kept that handshake a secret. Not the best way to let da-da know she needed a butt change.

I think, nay, I KNOW that I've earned the license to be gross. It's like uncouth Karma. Even more, I think my wife should shut up about it. Did I constantly tell her that her projectile vomit was disgusting while washing it off the walls? No. I pulled my t-shirt up over my nose, ground my teeth and fought the urge to vomit myself as I blotted up congealed stomach solutions and chunks of her last craving. I soldiered on.

It's not like I walk up to the wife and ask her to pull my finger. Or dash across the room, whirl around and stick my wallet in her face immediately prior to a discharge. I don't blow the hair from her eyes with a massive burp at the dinner table. These natural body emissions just happen on their own. She should accept this, be polite and pretend to ignore them- even if she does occassionally turn green and have to physically pinch her nose shut.

And it's only going to get worse. I remember my grandfathers. I remember how they bubbled and hissed and filled a room with all sorts of port-a-potty-like smells from time to time. As I get older, my self-control will decrease and my bodily functions will increase. The Fart Factory is just coming online.

The next time the mother of your children lets fly a barb about your grossness, look her square in the eyes and reply "Glass Houses, baby... glass houses...".